Mi Lima destilada

The present project explores the relationship between fiction and territory through Lima Norte, Peru. By recomposing fragments of the city, fiction becomes less an act of invention than a way of attending to what usually remains unnoticed.

Mi Lima destilada is a photomontage project exploring the relationship between fiction and territory through the experience of Lima Norte, Peru.

Lima Norte emerged through successive waves of self-built neighborhoods that expanded beyond the city's original urban plan. Often perceived from outside through simplified narratives. The images are built entirely from photographs taken across the north part of the city, each image recomposes fragments of real places into landscapes that never existed exactly as they appear, yet remain entirely possible.

Rather than inventing another city, fiction becomes a way of distilling the relationships that make a territory feel like home. The project condenses recurring elements of Lima's urban landscape—unfinished architecture, hillsides, electrical wires, concrete surfaces, dust, and empty spaces—revealing a city that feels both familiar and strangely reconstructed.

Developed from an affective relationship with the place after being away for so long, Mi Lima destilada asks how we come to recognize a territory as home. The images do not seek to idealize or correct the city. Instead, they invite a slower way of looking at what is often overlooked or excluded from its most familiar representations. If postcards usually define what deserves to be seen, these landscapes turn their attention toward what everyday life has made almost invisible.

Through fiction, the project proposes another way of inhabiting the city: by looking closely enough to discover that belonging can also emerge from the ordinary, the unfinished, and the repeatedly unnoticed.